Ordinary citizens during extraordinary times

Bremeo builds an argument around Sartori's proposition that citizen polarization is what has led to the demise of democracy. She argues instead that citizens in European and Latin American countries have not always intentionally chosen to side with undemocratic rulers. What appears to be mass civilian support for authoritarian rule in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil for the LA cases is actually a very small percentage of the population whose views did not reflect those of the majority. For example, in Uruguay most of the rioting in the late 70's was not from the broad left but mostly upper class university students. In Germany of course there was a tendency towards fascism but even then by the time that Hitler came into power the Nazi's did not have a lot of public support. in Brazil voters continued to support (heavily if i muss say) centrist parties and unlike what Sartori argues they did not move towards fringe parties. Bremeo argues that in most cases democracy fell because of the relationships between elites and the military. In almost all of her case studies the undemocratic leaders who led to the fall of democracy e.g. in Romania were invited to lead by the leaders who thought that they would be able maintain their hold on power but as we saw with the King in Romania elites did not always manage to control their appointed leaders. The economic down turn during this time period also shows that the shift from democratic to undemocratic rule might have had little to do with voters not wanting to be democratic and more to do with the economic response and that voters were fed up of the economy and the undemocratic politicians took advantage of the voter frustration. 

I would have liked to see more anecdotes, i like the book but it was just really blah...

Scheiner (2006) Democracy without competition

Scheiner (2006) Democracy without competition

The puzzle that Scheiner attempts unpack is what has allowed for the survival of the LDP as Japan’s leading party since 1955 and what explains opposition failure. The puzzle is even more interesting because the LDP is not popular with the voters and unlike other hegemonic parties such as Mexico’s PRI which win elections with over 60% of the vote the LDP barely wins with 55% of the vote. Scheiner finds that the Japanese case especially telling because the LDP has not only survived being unpopular but has also survived even when the economy tanked and there was no reason why voters would reward them by reelecting them. He also shows that the general public was disgusted by rampant corruption and yet the opposition has not been able to capitalize on this weakness and make inroads in the political arena.

 Scheiner argues that the main reason why the LDP has continued to win and the opposition fails is because of clientelistic networks that the party has built and the opposition has not been able to match them.  He defines clientelism as “benefits that are awarded to people who supported the party and are withheld from those who are found, on the basis of some kind of monitoring, not to have supported it.” He acknowledges that it is hard to measure clientelism but in the Japanese case he used observations of investments in the regions being punished and those being rewarded as a measure of clientelism. The difference between clientelism and ordinary pork in this case is that in Japan resources are centralized and the government has a hold on all the public resources and can use those to reward or punish those whom it sees as opposing them.  The combination of clientelism and centralized government  and electoral protection of groups who benefit  from clientelism has led to the survival  of the  LDP.

What explains opposition failure?  He argues that the opposition has been fielding weak candidates who are easily credited and unknown outside the communities. The ruling party has resource advantage, they have access to the state pots which they then use to fuel their clientelistic networks, voters do not trust the opposition, the opposition sometimes has radical ideology, the ruling party has been using its majorities in parliament to change the electoral institutions the SNTV as been influential in keeping the LDP in power.

Scheiner uses evidence from expenditure from public works and development projects to measure clientelistic networks and their hold on national politics. He also uses content analysis and observational methods to assess the relationships.

The strength is that the book is very intuitive and well written and that is a big plus. I am actually thinking that a lot of the focus was on opposition parties and so that is what the book should have been about, tracing the formation and failure of opposition parties.  I also don’t think of the LDP as hegemonic because it has not been winning with large margins of the vote, so in that way I think it is no longer hegemonic. I would have also liked to see a lot more attention paid to the tactics that the ruling party uses to keep the opposition out of office. A study on individual voters and their perceptions of the opposition party would also build on to the explanation. 

Boix (2003) Democracy and redistribution

In this seminal work he attempts to move forward from Lipset type modernization theories, which imply simply causal relationships between economic growth and democratization or lack of. Here he established 3 causal mechanisms for regime change:
1. Domestic distribution of economic asserts

2. The impact on regime type of fixed vs. mobile (fluid) asserts

3. Political asserts

 Argument:

·      When the cost of democracy is lower than the cost of repression we should expect transition to democratic rule. When asserts are mobile e.g. human capitol and elites know that citizens can move their assets outside the country then taxes  should be lower. Think the US taxes on the wealthy are relatively lower because people can move their asserts to China were they can make more for much less. Therefore in agrarian societies (most of the developing world) inequality is going to be much higher because elites can afford to use repression- for one they can not move their land (fixed assert- similar argument in Wood (2005) plantation owners in Mexico fought to keep their land because most of their wealth was invested in the land and they could not guarantee that once the peasants came to power they would redistribute all the wealth in a way that disadvantage the elites- think also the argument by Acemogulu and Robinson (2006) –elites will use repression if their asserts are under attack and they can not guarantee that they will still maintain some power with democracy—also literature on the absence of a middle class) thus these societies are more unequal.

·      Economic growth is necessary but not sufficient for economic rule.

Approach:

·      This is a very structuralist approach- he puts fourth a set of “preconditions” that make authoritarian breakdown more likely and democratization possible.

·      The distribution of wealth between the poor and the rich is the central battle of regime change---very economic…what happens if there is economic equality but political inequality oil states?

·      This is also a social choice approach-arguing that redistributive struggles are at the heart of societal regimes –he makes assumptions on choices and individual preferences-

o   1. Individuals want to maximize their utility

o   2. His main variables are asserts (fixed and mobile) and equality

o   In his model there is a lot of bargaining going on

o   Politicians are constantly weighing their options –thinking of what move is going to be the cheapest between:

§  Repression- squelch any uprising  (Think Mugabe clearly did this..after announcements of a possible million citizen march they put out military tanks in every city to induce fear). Medium inequality can also lead to repression as both sides have some semblance of control so they keep fighting it out.

§  Redistribution-in the face of coming uprising leaders can opt to redistribute both wealth and power in Bahrain and other ME countries leaders gave offers of money

§  Asserts_also influence responses in this way

·      If the rich/elites can move their asserts they might not see anything wrong with democracy but if they can’t think Libya (lots of oil money and ties that can’t be exported) then elites might opt for repression.

Criticism

1.   is class the only actor in the equation? Is it just about the rich versus poor or do other factors such as ideology, religion matter i.e. categorical inequalities

2.   in some cases conflict is ethnic vs. class but I guess he would argue that if ethnicity has been used to deny entrance into the economy or politics then it really does not matter. I am thinking the Chinese minority in China is really wealthy but has been strategically excluded from politics or Indians in Kenya. Therefore he should have done more to show that ethnicity does not matter. 

Prezworski (2010) Democracy and the limits of self-government

-       The ideal of democracy has disfigured our actual understanding of democracy- the expectations of what can be achieved with democracy are beyond the merits and promises of the system.

-       Prz highlights the limits of what democracy can achieve

-       There are limits to what democracy can achieve but we have not yet even reached those limits as yet.

-        Social equality has not been achieved under any other system and therefore there is no reason to expect that things should be different under a democracy-which is a political movement not an economic one but a lot of research Boix, AC show that there is a relationship between inequality and the demand for democratic rule under certain circumstances. 

-       What does democracy provide

1.    Checks and balances –

2.    Equality of access to the political process through anonymity –there is equal opportunity to participate but this does not necessarily guarantee the right to participate some groups within the society have to be limited.

3.     Elections are important – inequality raises a social class an elite aristocracy that can inhibit elections if they think that democracy will limit their asserts (Box, AC)

The book

i.              Pr provides us with a standard on which to evaluate democracy

ii.            Engages historical debate to trace the history of democracy, hereditary leadership e.g. monarch, aristocracy and representative democracy all the way from Athens, Grugel argues that this is not really democracy as women did not have suffrage until very late in the history of most western states.

iii.          Agent centered theory- failure to democratize is because of the tyranny of the centralized power.

Criticism

i.              Treats elections and voters as independent assuming too much rat choice –He argues that democracy is learned and that after a period of time of holding elections they become a societal  value BUT he ignores electoral authoritarianism PRI in Mexico, LPD in Japan etc

ii.            Limited scale of government as John Stewart said in response to Gadaffi this is existential (insert word of choice here)____

Other notes

Democracy as a conflict management system (AC same argument but they say that conflict can lead to either democratization or nondemocratization)

1.    Provides for bargaining –it allows for the minority to voice their opinion, constitutes forces by requiring super majority to be involved

2.    He says that in Athenian democracy direct democracy made sense because everyone had a chance to rule.

3.    The option is to have self government whereby the majority that is elected into office reflects the individuals in the country

4.    Elections are inherently divisive and can be a major source of conflict. Seriously, it is a tough world out there…you are trying to convince millions that you are better than the next guy or gal (as  Palin would say) it gets tough and mean and in countries were the rule of law if not very strong things can get dicey.

Puzzle : If democracy is majority rule –people masses than elites

-Poor people increase income by taxing the rich

- If the poor anticipate being rich they will not impose high taxes on the rich …that is why the poor in the US vote for republicans because they are worried that when they get rich (for most people this is never) Dems will tax them to boot. But in reality the poor are better off taxing the rich now but everyone wants the American dream sooo democracy works peacefully.

-The founding fathers were not really concerned with democracy –the leading danger they saw was that people would galvanize against the wealthy they were more concerned about property.

i.              Money influences elections – on who runs and who doesn’t

ii.            As the poor anticipate being rich they will not implement policies that are hostile against the rich.  He doesn’t talk about this but the middle class can serve as a buffer between wealthy and poor (Moore 1968, Lipset 1959, Rueschmeye, Stephens and Stephens 1991 etc)

iii.          Elites created the first democracies – in his other works Prz has discussed the issues of class and how classes avoid instability. The result of class conflict is a self-equilibrium – the business owner make concessions, which leads to a well functioning labor union and the state will implement some minimum conditions that protect the poor e.g. minimum wage. Prz..emphasis that although income equality can come about with democracy.. . ”Democracy is a political revolution not a social revolution” but others have argued that you cannot have political equality without social equality.

iv.           How do we use democracy to guard against (a tricky balance)

a.    Government tyranny

b.    Majority tyranny

v.             Freedom         

a.    The goal of the book is to show that the current ideal of democracy is different from the reality but there is still room to grow

                                              i.     Fix elections

                                            ii.     Education of voters

Get out the vote increase the voter turnout 

Herbst (2000) States and power in Africa

His argument is that the structure of the African terrain has shaped the political decisions that politicians have had to make. The reason politicians in Africa have problems is because they have not been able to expand their control over the vast amounts of land. In all fairness it is a state development argument with only 5% of the military vehicle in functioning state there is no way that the state can get things done. The beaurocracy in most African countries is weak and things that take hours in most parts of the world take days or months on the continent- or maybe used to because now most parts of the continent are efficient.

The state in Africa is weak because it has not been able to expand its control and power over the vast under populated land. I can see some sense in this argument suggesting that the state needs to find a way to be able to collect taxes to effectively govern but I think that the state i.e. the ruling regime has made progress beyond the urban areas infact it looks like to consolidate power the regimes have all but left opposition parties to fight for the few urban votes as they spread themselves into the ruling area. Now I think the real question is why isn’t the rural voter holding the politicians accountable, as they should? His argument is that the location power in the state capital colonial creations that were meant to make trade easier but not to encourage rule is the problem this could be true but over time most countries have developed some urban centers away from the city and is this really a phenomenon unique to Africa because I think in almost every country the further away you move from the major cities the less development you will see and this is just a function of accessibility but I do see the point that there has been significant under development in the rural areas and this is less a geographical concern than that voters in those areas have no way of holding their politicians accountable. It beats me why rural voters are voting for the parties whose policies do them no good. 

Hyden (2006) African politics in a comparative perspective

This is a great book for someone who wants an overview on the current state of the field. Hyden wrote this book in an effort not just to summarize but to try and tie together the different threads of literature on African politics from the last 20 years. I have to say that at first i was really biased..in general I don't like reading books that start of with the author telling us that he watched Africa from above seriously! But is a great piece of work that is mainly  focused on 10 hot topics (my description not his). 

Why does Africa matter today?

1. Informal sector -It is the best place to study the role of informal institutions. Of course most of my examples are based on Zimbabwe but I am thinking of the role of the informal banking sector during the 2008 economic crisis. It is also interesting to think of corruption as an informal sector but does shape the way that goods and services are exchanged on the continent. 
1. Globalization has had a huge impact on the continent especially on the growing gap between the rich and the poor. I was reading an NYT article the other day on some big shot criminal turned businessman in SA who has these major parties in Sandton were the highlight of the night is him eating sushi of off the bodies of naked women. These parties easily run over $200, 000 in a country were some people can not afford basic amenities. The gap between the wealthy and the poor in Africa is growing at an alarming rate. One wealthy Chiyangwa a Zimbabwean businessmen a gave a tour of his more than 10 high class vehicles (I know nothing abut cars and could butcher the names if I tried). Along with globalization and the wealth disparities is it possible that Africa is a breeding ground for terrorism?
2. Africa’s geography- let us take another look at the continents geography and what that means for future economic and political development. Herbts developed an impressive theory which links the continents’’ woes to its geography.  He argues that the problems we see civil war etc are because the central government does not have control over their territories. Here Hyden suggests that the geography is important for three reasons
1. The continent is far from other parts of the worls explaining the late colonialism which he then links to poor development. I am sure most think the late colonialism is not such a bad thing because at least the continent retained much of its indigenous culture when compared to South America for example.
2. The climate and vegetation discouraged the movement of people namely discouraged Europeans who might have brought some knowledge etc
3. The main rivers the Nile, Congo, Niger and Zambezi which have been difficult to travel.
3. History – Hyden would like to remind us that Africa’s history does not begin with colonialism. According to Hyden the colonial period lasted from 1884-1960 but again the continent was not fully independent until 1994.
4. Africa’s economy- The continent is full of natural resources and yet the world’s bottom billion live in Africa (Collier). As I discussed earlier the continent has its share of wealthy people but the inequality compares only to Latin America. In more equal countries like Burundi and Rwanda everyone is equally poor. Globalization has skipped Africa and onto Asia the region remains economically marginalized. Part of it has to do with the politics of the region but I also the continent has not done enough to woo investors. There is a lot of money to be made in Africa.
5. The politics-All by two of the 48 sub-saharan countries are colonies (we all know the song from capetown to cairo….) so I won’t dwell too much on this. The puzzle is not so much with colonialism but what happened after independence. In the 1960’s the world as jubilant as country after country gained independence but what looked like promising democratic rule deteriorated into authoritarianism- we can talk of the big men rule here from Mobutu (whose name is always fun to say), Ggabango etc.  Multiparty politics did not do too well in the immediate years after independence. None or very few of the countries have programmatic politics were politicians campaign on policy issues and not identity politics. There is a major policy deficit on the continent and this is not due to some shortage of real policy issues but because it is less costly for politicians to use patronage or identity politics than talk about policy. The politicians on the continent have done too much politics and very little politics. The short film of friends at the bank details how economic decisions have become political decisions and that is really bad for economic growth.

The continent is now more dependent on external aid than ever before – we would expect that this dependency should be declining but clearly this has not been the case.

Hyden shares some gloomy stats with us here

1. 1999 one fifth of all Africans lived in a war torn country.
2. 28 wars were fought btwn 1970-2004
3. the Sudanese civil war cost over two million people , one million died in Rwanda in 1994, about half a million people died in the Angola civil war that lasted 27 years. 

Beatriz Magaloni (2006) Voting for autocracy (Mexico's PRI)

Week 5: Beatriz Magaloni (2005) Voting for Autocracy

This is another well-written book. A part of me wished I had been born earlier so that I would have written such an amazing dissertation but oh well. In our obsession with elections we have given very little attention to autocratic elections. What allows for the survival of hegemonic parties who stay in power for decades.  Part of the puzzle is why have elections in authoritarian regimes? Why did the PRI have elections? Why is Robert Mugabe calling for elections? Are the elections always fraudulent if not when do politicians use fraud and how do they calculate the benefits for doing so.

The first observation that she makes is that hegemonic parties do not win with small margins of the vote. In fact they are violating both the space and size laws (Laver and Schofield 1991). The size law states that parties will form minimal winning coalitions 50+1 enough to get major policies passed.  But in hegemonic governments they are aiming to win with over 60% of the vote enough to make sweeping changes that require a super majority. Evidence from the ME (Ghaddi, Lust-Okar) suggests that parties in the middle east want large majorities so that they can control constitutional amendments.  Magaloni argues that the PRI needed a super majority win to look strong and build voter confidence. Having a super majority makes it easier for the parties to distribute patronage i.e. jobs to their favored constituencies. If the PRI looked strong the opposition would not field strong candidates, the PRI could use their control of resources to co-opt the opposition as they have done and has been done elsewhere.

These parties don’t always use fraud, they will use it when the need it the most in the 1988 election the PRI clearly stuffed the ballot boxes. I do think that hegemonic parties might as well stuff the boxes because the opposition is most likely going to accuse them of stuffing the boxes wether or not they do this.

WHO supports the PRI-

They get their support from the voters who depend on them the most the rural voter and the poor voters who need government aid.

What does the NGO mean for todays hegemonic parties

-I think it’s great for them. Look at museveni he claims credit for work that the NGO’s are doing and just says well I brought them here.

I also think that unless the NGO’s are local they are not catering to the same client. NGO’s come back home and give their fancy reports and Museveni and co. claim the credit for mosquito nets delivered by the NGO.

The opposition

-       the opposition fails for a number of  reasons in these countries

1.     The ruling party can bring them into the fold. Look at MDC in Zimbabwe they have been given cars, houses, they are now part of the government and not the opposition

2.     They are not united. In Japan even though the LDP is the least popular party it is the most united it rarely splinters and yet opposition parties are breaking of left right and center.  The opposition in Zambia’s 1991 elections was great the formed the MMD an oversize coalition which guaranteed a win.

3.     They field weak candidates- they can not provide patronage, they can not make credible promises. Clever parties win when they are working with a dumb hegemonic party e.g. in Senegal instead of holding to name brand leaders the DP let them go and form their own party. The PRI was really good at punishing defectors or giving them things to stay happy, ZANU PF is another great example. The party formed from a coalition of two big parties post 1980 has pretty much remained intact whilst the opposition has splintered of.

4.     Resource poor – in most centralized clientelisti governments, parties have to be able to deliver pork. Without access to the state pots the opposition cannot do that.

5.     They have a limited view-they are only campaigning in urban areas. They have to expand their zone of influence go for an all country strategy.